Pregnancy Four Summary

This post is more for posterity's sake than for you, my reader.  It is more for my own memory and for my children.  I would call this an update, but it occurs to me that I have hardly even mentioned here that we are expecting baby four.  Tuesday we are officially 34 weeks.  That means we could actually have a new person in our family in as little as three weeks (and certainly within five to seven).

One of the primary reasons I decided to return to blogging was because I read back through my pregnancy updates with Penelope and realized that I remembered almost nothing!  It was alarming.  So it turns out my mommy brain needs help, and this is such a convenient way to document.

For the record, I think I've gained 25 pounds since week 8 - but I'm not sure that I didn't gain 15 pounds before week 8.   I don't have a scale though, so I can't be sure.  I can be sure that something happened, because while hugging Søren around week 4 (when I was only suspicious that I was pregnant) he looked up at me with pure joy in his eyes and declared, "Mama, you have back fat!" Like it was the most wondrous miracle he had ever experienced.  It was really all the pregnancy test I needed.  Those maternal stores sure know what to do the fourth time.

Photo and support thanks to my friend Summer

Also worth noting, my midwife was concerned that I was too big too fast, so she asked that we have an ultrasound to rule out twins.  Had I re-read Penelope's pregnancy updates, I would have realized that was a concern with Penny, too.  Then I could have assured my midwife that I just get big fast.  But I did not remember, and one of my dearest friends had just discovered that she was indeed carrying twins, so we had the ultrasound.  All we found was one VERY active and bouncy little babe.  It was too early to make gender predictions.  The profile on the babe was, however, an exact replica of my husband's.  Now he wants it to be a boy, simply not to burden a girl with having his face.  I have assured him that he is pretty enough to be a girl.

Weeks 5-12 were awful.  I have never experienced "morning" sickness before (by "morning" read: ALL DAY).  With Penny I had a few actual mornings, in the first two weeks, that were rough, but easily fixed by eating orange slices before getting out of bed and weaning my toddler.  This time, nothing helped.  My husband was living and working in a different state, and it was all I could do to feed myself the the kids (take out) and read some books before bed.  I am really not sure what we did those weeks.  I know I sat on my front porch a lot as I couldn't bear the smell of my house.  I think we walked a lot.  I know I saw my other mama friends (not to mention other friends), and they were all kind enough to help wash my dishes on a regular basis.

My sympathies to all women who have suffered pregnancy sickness.  I know mine could have been much worse.  All I can say is, had my first pregnancies been like this one, I would not be having a fourth child.  It makes me appreciate those early (younger) pregnancies so much more.  At one point my husband came home for the weekend and said something to the tune of, "If I ever come home to find the house like this again, I..." at which point I told him to stop for, "If you ever say something like that again, I..."  Those were hard weeks.  I'm also not sure what followed the "if" clauses, but I know it didn't insinuate anything good.  Suffice it to say that neither of us understood very well what the other was sacrificing and dealing with.

Then, we moved, making Penny's the only pregnancy where we lived in one place for the entire duration.  I take comfort knowing that was (lord willing) the last time I will ever have to move pregnant.

I started binding much earlier this time around, and it was a great benefit.  It made a HUGE difference in my energy.  But now I have to stop as it seems to encourage this baby to turn breech, though it helped Penny to stay head down.  There are other things about a fourth pregnancy (within 6 1/2 years) that are not so pleasant.  The increased varicose veins are just the tip of the iceberg.  If you are a pregnant person and want to talk about this stuff, just shoot me an email.  I'll give you a few tips.

Now, I am trying to balance feeling done being pregnant (please, never again) with the realization this is also likely the last time I will get to feel secret kicks and marvel at the wonder of a new human being forming within my own body.   It really is a miraculous thing to participate in, and I will very likely get a baby urge in a couple years and have to accept that that chapter of our lives is behind us.

Picture from 33 weeks - I am actually feeling small!

Baby four seems healthy and active.  It still flips itself all around on a regular basis.  All of my other babies have spent a little time breech, so it's no surprise that this one has, too.  This is certainly our mystery baby.  I have NO inkling on gender, which is really different from my other pregnancies.  I think I'm just far too distracted.  I almost forget I am pregnant most of the time, until I get a couple kicks.  Hormonally, I think it is a little more similar to Penny's pregnancy than to the boys'.  So if that means anything, I lean towards it being a girl.  I'd like a girl.  It makes a pretty picture, two brothers and two sisters, but, obviously, we are excited for whatever God brings us.  His plan has repeatedly proven better than what I imagine is right for my life.

Everyone is excited to meet this little person.  Søren told me a few weeks ago that he is SO happy that I am having another baby.  He wants it to be a girl, and he'd like her to be named either Laura (because we read the Little House series) or Lucy (because we're reading the Chronicles of Narnia).  I like the name Lucy, but I don't like first names that are really nick names, and I don't care for Lucille or Lucinda.  We'd like to keep with a literary reference in the first name, but that is getting harder.

Elliot beams whenever we talk about the new baby, or whenever he gets to feel it kick.  When Søren first met Penny, he turned to me and said, "Now you need to have another one for Elliot."  For some reason, Elliot is taking serious ownership of being a big brother twice over, and becoming "one of the oldest kids" rather than the middle child.   This is actually a big part of why we wanted a fourth child.

I have no problem sharing the naming progress, so for the record, I lean toward Theodore if it's a boy (middle name William or Justice, but Andrew has dibs on the middle name, so it might also be Ransom after the main character in the CS Lewis space trilogy).  If it's a girl, Audrey (nothing settled for the middle yet, and if we keep with tradition, the girls get two middle names!  We're thinking about Elizabeth, after my husband's enjoyment of The Sonnets of the Portuguese - yep, he's a sensitive one).  My husband, as usual, does not yet like my name choices.  We shall see.  He is warming up to them.  I had to remind him that Audrey was HIS preference during Penny's pregnancy.

How I spend an increasing amount of hours in my day
(can you see my popped belly button?)

Anyone - if anyone actually has read through this whole post! - want to play the guessing game on when this babe will arrive?  Weight?  Gender?   I am not-so-secretly hoping to work myself into labor cooking Thanksgiving dinner so that we can keep December for Christmas and advent.  But that might just be wishful thinking with the due date on Dec 13th.

End of an Era

Penny

Elliot

It may sound melodramatic, but as I took these head shots of my three children yesterday, I realized that this is the end of an era for us.  Baby four is, perhaps, only six weeks away - or perhaps eleven - either way is soon.  You might think that by the fourth time adding another kid is no big deal.  In many ways it is not.  Nothing will change my life like the way going from "not-a-mother" to "a mother" changed my life.  Then, learning to be the mother to more than one kid was mind-blowing.  I learned that the human heart is capable of so much more love than I ever imagined.  So, I do not expect to have my mind blown this time.  I have fallen in love with three of these little people already.  I know that will happen instantly.  I know what it is to care for an infant while also caring for other children.  Still, every child profoundly changes me, because I become that child's mother, too.  Every child has changed our family.  We'll go from being a family of five to being a family of six.  Our home dynamic will change.  We are adding a brand new person into our intimate little family with their own unique personality.  We don't even know who this person is yet, and yet I know we will love him/her.

Søren

I can look back at pictures of just the boys, before our Penny was born, and those pictures seem like a different life.  It is hard to imagine (or really remember) what it was like to only have my boys with no Penny.  I suppose looking at these pictures of my three, I realized that this time next year I will see these photos so differently.  They will be photos of "before," though, at the moment, they are my very present.  I know this change is coming - and soon - and yet there is no way to mentally or emotionally prepare for it.  You just greet life as it comes and let it change you.  I will be transformed, soon, to a mother of four.  Life will be different.  This life, these moments, will become dull and hard to access when compared to the fullness that will be our new life with our new little one.  I am sure this all sounds so basic, but it feels profound to be faced with it.